A batting tee is used by to practice hitting a baseball or softball held at various positions within or near the strike zone. By using a batting tee to practice hitting a stationary ball, players can improve their batting swings and learn to hit balls from various locations. Since the tee is often struck by the bat, it must be impact resistant. At the same time, the tee should also hold the ball in a way that minimally interferes with the bat, so that hitting the ball off of the tee better simulates hitting a pitched ball. The batting tee may also tip over when hit with a bat. This interrupts the batting practice since the user must then pick up and reset the batting tee. Consequently, a tee designed to resist tipping is beneficial. The batting tee should also be easily portable and quick to set up and take down.
Various batting tees have been proposed in the past. Generally these batting tees have a flat base or plate, an adjustable length post on the plate, and a ball holder at the top end of the post. Examples are shown in Lefebvre U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,691; Rodino U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,987; Tanner U.S. Pat. No. 6,358,163 and Quinn U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0302948. While these and other designs may have met with varying degrees of success, engineering challenges remain to providing an improved batting tee.